Alien senses, culture and communication with humans

[Architect of Doom]

I've been thinking about this, and I feel the necessity to put my ideas here so you guys can debate.

Firstly I was thinking of how alien culture would be like. Given the fact that our human cultures are the result of human mentality and instincs, then it would be difficult for us to understand an alien culture because their instincts, mentality and senses would differ. Then I thought: Senses! How would they be different? Depending on the environment in which they live, they could have completelly different senses form our own. For example, if they live on a lightless environment, they would certainly have a different perception of "vision". Perhaps they could even see infrared or ultraviolet rediation insted of our visible light. Therefore their concept of "visible light" would be radically different from ours. So, if they told us what they see, we wouldn't understand. It would be like describing a colour to someone who has been born blind. Then we have their communication. While we humans communicate with sounds (speech), they could communicate with their own bodies, such as glowing body parts or movements or even with telepathy (which we don't know if is possible).

And then I ask: how the hell would we communicate and comprehend them? Their mentality (culture, philosophy, definition of what is good and bad) would be different, their senses would be impossible for us to understand and their means of communication would also be different. So, if communication is impossible, how would we tell them what they can't do in our planet and what we don't want them to do with us? This could lead to agressions. What do you think we could do in this situation?

[Euphoric]

Beings that evolved near stars different than ours in any way (i.e. it emits a different spectrum of light, has a different intensity, is larger, hotter, closer, farther away, blocked by an asteroid belt or hyper red-giant, is a binary system, etc.) or planets that were vastly different from ours (gas giants [who knows?], colder, warmer, different compositions, different position in the habitability zone, etc.) will almost certainly have evolved in far different ways than we have, and some may share no senses whatsoever with us. They may only be able to interact with us or recognize our existence by studying the frequencies emitted from our planet.

However, there may be living beings that exist in a capacity that we don't, and perhaps never, can understand. How could we ever hope to communicate with a being that exists in a medium or in a way in which we simply haven't evolved to understand/sense?

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

Communication would be easy: Binary code. Any alien civilization would share the same basic code for digital electronics, ergo we could use binary code as a means to transfer communications between our two civilizations.

[Euphoric]

Communication would be easy: Binary code. Any alien civilization would share the same basic code for digital electronics, ergo we could use binary code as a means to transfer communications between our two civilizations.

What if there is a race of beings who simply haven't evolved to understand existence numerically?

[Kyriakos]

Communication would be easy: Binary code. Any alien civilization would share the same basic code for digital electronics, ergo we could use binary code as a means to transfer communications between our two civilizations.

I strongly think that this is not at all probable... Many reasons:

-Binary is a subset of the 9 (or 10, with zero) repeated numerals that humans use. It is not that likely that aliens would use a similar main system, or a similar 'simplified' (i know that binary is not exactly that, but anyway) system.

-Binary is not the only system used in computers. Systems of 3 digits were also put to use (eg in the Soviet union computing). Furthermore there are still examinations of whether a 3-digit system will be better for all computers now, moreso with the possibility to use biological parts in them as well (which i know little about).

-A number system seems to prerequisite the ability to focus on differences of size or expansion. Not all life forms would have to need that or focus on that.

There can be many other reasons too, in my view

*

I think that aliens would likely be very different from us, unless of course they were somehow created by a common ancestor as us (a theory, which i have no view of either way).

[Phier]

While an alien COULD be very different than us, thinking in very odd, abstract, and impossible to follow ways, I don't think that's nearly as likely as them being very much like us, enough to figure out how to communicate at any rate.

The reason being, that while we may evolve in completely different places, there are only so many ways to do things well. Convergent evolution would favor those ways. We could teach a language primer with with images and the words and while its possible they would not be able to recognize it for what it was, I doubt it.

[Gaidin]

I strongly think that this is not at all probable... Many reasons:

-Binary is a subset of the 9 (or 10, with zero) repeated numerals that humans use. It is not that likely that aliens would use a similar main system, or a similar 'simplified' (i know that binary is not exactly that, but anyway) system.

-Binary is not the only system used in computers. Systems of 3 digits were also put to use (eg in the Soviet union computing). Furthermore there are still examinations of whether a 3-digit system will be better for all computers now, moreso with the possibility to use biological parts in them as well (which i know little about).

-A number system seems to prerequisite the ability to focus on differences of size or expansion. Not all life forms would have to need that or focus on that.

There can be many other reasons too, in my view

*

I think that aliens would likely be very different from us, unless of course they were somehow created by a common ancestor as us (a theory, which i have no view of either way).

He's actually somewhat right but not for the reason he thinks. Binary is a natural numerical set to reach in math, whatever a race's nominal set to count with, because of electrical theory, the positive and negative charge. They can easily, logically, be mapped to zero and one, whatever your whim or choice might be. The digital on/off is not at all necessary to any given race that may or may not be found out in the universe, however.

[Sire Brenshar]

I always liked to think that a real Alien would be so different we're currently unable to even imagine what it could look like yet, the same way we can't really imagine a 'new' color.

We like to think of beings as having legs arms a body and head, and in popular fiction and sci-fi usually Aliens merely deviate from that life standard we've set, but possibly in reality an alien will have organs, sensory equipment and indeed basic composition that are utterly foreign to us and result in a currently totally unimaginable look and form, but once we see it that body might start to make sense to us.

As well its interesting how for example ants aren't really capable or being aware of us as we are of them, and how we feel emotions and have thoughts smaller animals are totally unable of. What would the next level look like? Maybe we're already being observed by Aliens but in a way we can't detect?

I do think though that one day we'll eventually discover that intelligent beings like ourselves are probably in the extreme uncommon scale, and that we might never even find comparable life if humanity even ends up existing for that long.

Just my thoughts though

[Architect of Doom]

I always liked to think that a real Alien would be so different we're currently unable to even imagine what it could look like yet, the same way we can't really imagine a 'new' color.

We like to think of beings as having legs arms a body and head, and in popular fiction and sci-fi usually Aliens merely deviate from that life standard we've set, but possibly in reality an alien will have organs, sensory equipment and indeed basic composition that are utterly foreign to us and result in a currently totally unimaginable look and form, but once we see it that body might start to make sense to us.

As well its interesting how for example ants aren't really capable or being aware of us as we are of them, and how we feel emotions and have thoughts smaller animals are totally unable of. What would the next level look like? Maybe we're already being observed by Aliens but in a way we can't detect?

I do think though that one day we'll eventually discover that intelligent beings like ourselves are probably in the extreme uncommon scale, and that we might never even find comparable life if humanity even ends up existing for that long.

Just my thoughts though

Ants aren't aware of us as living beings? I didn't know that.

This actually makes me think that what we define as a "life form" certainly will not apply everywhere on the universe. Like RubiconDecision said, it could be like Solaris in which planet is a living beign. Perhaps, somewhere out there, a simple thing such as a rock or a crystal can also be sentient. Actually, sentience isn't even an universal standard to life forms. Look at plants, for example.

This means that if we ever find alien life, we might not even identify them as "life" at first. What if aliens have already found us, but we aren't perceiving them as living beigns?

[RubiconDecision]

Here's a few thoughts:

If a sentient species evolved on the Earth before humanity, then it's likely that this species could still be radically different than ourselves. We may or may not have encountered it yet.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...ism-is-fungus/

Let's say that this fungus which occupies 2,384 acres is sentient. How would you communicate with it? What if its nervous system is so completely different that it's been aware of the area that it grows in, but we simply had no way to determine it was cognizant of anything? What if it's like Solaris and the entire planet is sentient in some sense but mystifying in its behavior even when attempting to interact (the first movie is terrible slow and I can't get through it despite it receiving a very high rating. The second film is superior in my opinion.)

Or let's say that an advanced species was around but existed in more than our 4 dimensions. It would appear at times as random siteings of amorphous objects as it passed through our own dimensions. Other than these rare appearances, we might be completely unaware that it existed. It might probably determine that our species was hostile due to issues like fracking and nuclear waste and couldn't be bothered to communicate with us.

In history, any people who encountered a more technologically advanced people didn't fare so well but got exploited in diverse ways. How would you know that communication would be a favorable thing to do?

It's improbable that two different sentient species on two different planets would evolve anything close to the same way....but it's also a possibility that certain patterns exist in biology and adaptation. So we might be able to have similar sensor inputs or tool manipulating appendages or have the same sorts of desires or needs.

A species could be aquatic and might therefore have been able to survive longer since protected within, and it's doubtful that landing upon an alien planet that we would detect such a species unless it was emitting radiation in some controlled form.

It practically always comes to mathematics for initial communication. For an excellent novel about this, see Contact by Carl Sagan(made into a film in 1997). In that novel, it explored the way of sending a primer within a complex code with multiple layers to teach humanity its language and technology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_%28novel%29

If another species was able to communicate orally, then since all children have the capacity to communicate within three years, it might surprisingly be simple to have a family of linguists with offspring to be ambassadors on each other's world. While the linguists could have the intial conversations, the standard language gained by mimicry and "What's that?" could easily amass many basic things, verbs, commands, etc within months. All of that means hand signals, words, postures, understanding facial expressions, movements, etc that can be interpreted.

If similar objects exist or natural things like water, plants, recognizable life form types, etc, then the old point to it and asking for the name of it, just as any child learns to do, or any new student of sign language learns to do, will yield the fastest results. That's the kind of infantile forms of communication we would have, not any kind of advanced concepts. This means forming a dictionary would be the next step.

[SinerAthin]

Do you guys think we could ever coexist peacefully with aliens in a mutually beneficial relationship?

I mean, look how much trouble different color, culture or religion, even within our very own race; is causing on earth.

[Kyriakos]

Do you guys think we could ever coexist peacefully with aliens in a mutually beneficial relationship?

I mean, look how much trouble different color, culture or religion, even within our very own race; is causing on earth.

I don't think we can, as things are. But i do think we could co-exist with all other humans, if the main political/economic "elites" (in reality pariahs) were not out to play one group against another and all along masquerade as the supposed protector of one group against the other.

Since all humans are evidently human, there is no logic in asking that some "races" are treated as victims, and others are asked to make up for that. This only leads to actual hostility, as happened in the USA in the last decade and the explosion of racial issues there. It was not like that in the 90s, which i do remember cause i was a teen at the time.

[RubiconDecision]

Communication from one species to another should happen for a reason, not happen because we simply desire it to happen. Initial communication is suspicious and based upon threat assessment. The distance from planet A to planet B along with the speed of encountering that other species physically would also govern that diplomatic exchange.

Communication in history happened for trade, conquering a less advanced species, enslavement, taking their property and land, war, etc. Other than this, communication happened for religious conversion. Still later communication came for the exchange of scientific ideas and artistic efforts.

All of those concepts might have no shared meaning with an alien life form even if as sentient or more intelligent than humanity. A sufficiently advanced species might still have limits upon their resources and need to colonize new local worlds. If our world could sustain their life forms then it could be the would be a worse case scenario for humanity. Since planet surface conditions are not likely to be the same on different planets that evolved life, then alternatively an alien species could terraform our own planet to use it most successfully. Again, that means our species wouldn't survive the exchange.

Because of the time to transmit a signal, for it to be interpreted, for the other species to decide upon a suitable message, and then transmit one back, then by the time all of this takes place, the controling political party for either species could have changed dramatically by the time it's received and a second message sent.

One would expect that some alien species would have beacons strategically placed transmitting an automatically signal, which then in turn listens and captures signals to be examined. This is a far more likely form of communication that wouldn't reveal the exact location of the originating planet and so a much safer means of communications.


The first real experiment we sent out in an intentional way was Voyager. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content..._Golden_Record
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/

[RubiconDecision]

It's entirely possible that an alternative sentient lifeform of more than our dimensions could share this space on Earth, but only be detectable as it passed through our dimension, and so we would have limited observation of it. It's also entirely possible that a sentient lifeform could exist in the deep oceans without being detected especially if it doesn't produce any elctromagnetic radiation as a signal or as a consequence of its technology.

Think about UFOs in history. Sure most are weather phenomena like ball lightning. Some might be earthlights from piezzoelectric effects from plate tectonics in volcanoes or from earthquakes. We've seen colorful lights around those kinds of activity. A good portion of military surveillance craft from many cultures. But some are unknown.

If a few of those are actually either artifical lifeform driven craft or they are piloted with sentient natural lifeforms, then the distance is too vast to be plausible without major changes in physics. Even at the most optimistic speeds they do not seem plausible especially considering where we are located in this galaxy on a minor part of a spiral arm instead of a major intense activity center. As such, if even one of the UFOs in history is piloted in some manner by an intelligent life form of some kind, it is far more likely to have a terrestrial origin.

Otherwise, the only possbile explanation would be a craft which could pass through time in some way. If that were so, it were be far more likely that one potential craft would leave one universe for another universe in the multiverse theory, otherwise you have all of the many problems in temporal mechanics with altering timelines, changing the events from the future to the past, resulting in winking out the existence of that time traveling craft.

The most likely possibility is that one or more of these UFOs is an interdimensional being, and that we get glimmers as they travel through space or terrestrially. That they could be observing us. If so, then given the history of such craft from ancient Vimannas to present day, would likely be scientists studying biological phenomena akin to marine biologists examining specimens, but in our case also monitoring communication.

[Euphoric]

That's not how post-spacial dimensions work. If there are indeed more dimensions than 3+time, then we already exist in them, we just are incapable of perceiving them (perhaps).

[RubiconDecision]

As four dimensional beings, we are capable of detecting when their "body" or "ship" passes through our dimensions, for they are able to exist in more than those four. There's actually articles or books or video discussing this very subject, and it's also an alternative theory by Jacques Vallee PhD and former assistant to Hynek of Project Blue Book fame. He's lectured at Ted Talks before and is quite brilliant.

Think a CAT scan of slices, and that's perhaps how we would see such a being or ship as it passed through our space and due to our less nuanced sensory input. Based upon the direction and changes in direction, those slices of their body or ship would give very different slices and hence obscure any analysis of them. It might explain morphing during UFO videos.

We have a very limited understanding of four dimensions because we do not truly perceive in four dimensions, but rely upon memory which experiments over and over have demonstrated editting and subjectivity.

[Kyriakos]

As four dimensional beings, we are capable of detecting when their "body" or "ship" passes through our dimensions, for they are able to exist in more than those four. There's actually articles or books or video discussing this very subject, and it's also an alternative theory by Jacques Vallee PhD and former assistant to Hynek of Project Blue Book fame. He's lectured at Ted Talks before and is quite brilliant.

Think a CAT scan of slices, and that's perhaps how we would see such a being or ship as it passed through our space and due to our less nuanced sensory input. Based upon the direction and changes in direction, those slices of their body or ship would give very different slices and hence obscure any analysis of them. It might explain morphing during UFO videos.

We have a very limited understanding of four dimensions because we do not truly perceive in four dimensions, but rely upon memory which experiments over and over have demonstrated editting and subjectivity.

A couple of points on the above:

1) If the aliens exist (whatever existing means in regards to them, from our point of view) in more than 4 dimensions (3 dimensions of space+ 1 of time) then they are very highly likely (virtually for certain) able to very easily never appear to us, much like you can remain invisible to something which would exist in 2 dimensions by just never entering its plane.

2) If the aliens exist in less dimensions then it is probable they would only accidentally become visible to us. I mean how often do you follow a movement in space in merely one field or plane set by two dimensions? Other complications may exist which render an object existing in less dimentions than us very likely be missed all-together.

Personally i think that if very different alien beings exist, they would probably face a lot of problems in trying to prove that humans exist even if we are in (according to one definition or another) common "space" and near each other.

[visser300]

I think whatever you smoked was rather high

[Kyriakos]

^Elaborate a bit cause i just cannot see what you mean due to being so high above such stuff

[RubiconDecision]

It might be that a consequence of using technology allows them to be perceived by us by those four dimensional senses (really three senses plus memory).

While all of this is nonsensical to some, the reality is there is unexplained phenomena that cannot merely be the other subsets like weather, military craft, odd less documented seismic events.

Let's say that a form of electromagnetic radiation resulted in causing confusion or altered neurology in humans. Well then when that phenomena happened, then an altered state could occur of various effects based upon the age of the person, and thus alter their memory of it. Electomagetic radiation has been known to cause feelings of panic for example. That doesn't discount a photograph or video, some of which have been taken by miltary surveillance craft themselves.

The fact that we've had both Reagan and now Clinton discussing the effect of an alien invasion or encounter, shows that despite the ridicule from some quarters the phenomena is valid in that it is unknown, but not that any evidence exists that proves that unknown phenomena is extraterrestrial.

Vallee thinks that either a different sentient species (terrestrially-based) could use their appearance or some form of communication as a control system, say for religion. Likewise that a government could use the beliefs of the public about the supernatural awe of UFOs as a control system. In earlier decades discussion of holograms to confuse the enemy with diverse religious scenes was discusses as a way of altering enemy battle encounters by startling them, particularly fundamentalists in say Islam.

In mass sightings there is the potential for mass hysteria, but some have been so weird as to indicate at least some odd phenomena resulted in witnesses having similar depictions of the event. One happened in the former Soviet Union with numerous witnesses seeing large taller than normal humanoids and some of the witnesses were of high reputability as well as being trained scientific observers.


The other is a case of Russian cosmonauts who witnesses enormous beings with an angel-like appearance. Space madness induced by claustrophobia? Or did some off EMR result in bathing the craft, but in producing a shared experience of neulogical disorder? Or did something odd happen in which another sentient specied revealed itself? Or was it an experiment intentionally caused by either the Soviet Union or the Americans to test a weapon that produces some energy? Who knows?


The official story of Soviet Salyut 7 was mass hysteria of a giant orange cloud.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salyut_7

The unofficial story was numerous cosmonauts coming forward to claim giant angel-like beings who hovered around the craft.

http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/t...ngels-in-space

A scientific explanation of some radiation or a true paranormal explaination or something in between would all be interesting. There's no need for it to be extraterrestrial aliens. Traveling all of that way in time, resources, and fuel to say hello? I doubt it. A local species who exists beyond our understanding and perception? More plausible but still seems rather impossible.